Ran some jeep roads SW CO

This is a discussion on Ran some jeep roads SW CO within the Off-Roading Your Raptor forums, part of the Ford Raptor Forums - General Information category! I took the Raptor out on my local jeep roads yesterday. My truck is a bone stock 2010. The only ...

I took the Raptor out on my local jeep roads yesterday. My truck is a bone stock 2010. The only thing it doesn't do well is crawl downhill slowly. The hill descent control works awesome... until it overheats and there is miles of downhill trail left. Otherwise I just aired it down a little and away we went. Too much packed snow on the road to go over California so we took the easy way around on Poughkipsee gulch, and dropped back to the highway on the Engineer pass road.

I know it isn't a rock crawler but honestly, it does pretty well. Big tires, soft suspension, good turning circle, low gears, it worked!

Anymore, at least in my area, they have become roads more than trails. The tour companies all run full size trucks with big passenger bodies on the back, wider than the Raptor for sure. Most of the tourists seem to think noisy smelly utvs are the ticket even though the trucks they towed them here with work fine. Makes for more room on the trails for those of us smart enough to just drive trucks though.

Hey @Snowsled I went up to the San Juans last year and got hooked. We did Imogene, Ophir & Cinnamon passes on our way to Denver to see the kids. Cinnamon & Ophir were pretty easy, Imogene was a little more challenging due to the tight spots and the decent off the top, but not that bad.

As a person familiar with the passes up there, Which ones would you say are NOT a good idea in a Raptor? Really not interested in rock crawling. Its a fair trip from Phoenix and with my wife's limited time off, I want to make em count.

Hey @Snowsled I went up to the San Juans last year and got hooked. We did Imogene, Ophir & Cinnamon passes on our way to Denver to see the kids. Cinnamon & Ophir were pretty easy, Imogene was a little more challenging due to the tight spots and the decent off the top, but not that bad.

As a person familiar with the passes up there, Which ones would you say are NOT a good idea in a Raptor? Really not interested in rock crawling. Its a fair trip from Phoenix and with my wife's limited time off, I want to make em count.

Pretty amazing country and awesome that we can drive right up the roads to these amazing places.

The lower parts of Engineer pass from Hwy 550 are similar to the tougher spots on Imogene. You need to do Corkscrew, Hurricane and California, all similar in difficulty to Cinnamon or Ophir. Black Bear is more like Imogene in difficulty right until you drop down into Telluride. The road is one way downhill, the switchbacks are very tight and the drops VERY steep. I do not normally go down because number one, I do not care to go through Telluride, local thing and two, it is just unnecessarily dangerous IMO. Poughkipsee gulch now has a bypass around the serious rock crawling but it still very rocky on the lower section like Imogene or Engineer.

July is about as early as I recommend coming. It normally takes that long to get the roads all open. 4th of July is insane here, book now. The season is about done. There are now places I wouldn't run without chains, just the very tops but... We have about a ten day warm spell going and indian summer could last but it could go to full on winter at any time now.

We came over Ophir to Silverton in late June, then did Engineer to Lake City and back over on Cinnamon. It seemed like most of the traffic was RZR rentals, plenty were surprised to see a Raptor up there. Canít wait to go back.